Samuel Barker: Anything interesting coming up for you?

Jimmie Vaughan: Yeah, I was nominated for a Grammy, the Grammies are coming up. The third part of my tour is going to start at the end of January, and I’m working on a new record.

Samuel: So you’re just keeping it rolling.

Jimmie: I’ve got a lot of things that are coming up, just what I do, gigs, promoting the new record, the Grammies, and that’s enough.

Samuel: Is the record you’re working on now going to be on Artemis?

Jimmie: Yeah, it will on there as well.

Samuel: With the Grammies, I know you’ve won a few; do you still get nervous waiting after you get nominated?

Jimmie: Absolutely. I can appreciate things more the older I get...It’s better than a sharp stick in your eye, lets put it that way. I’m really excited about it. It’s a new record on a new label, and I got nominated and the whole thing, I’m tickled.

Samuel: Are you happy with the reception ‘Do You Get The Blues’ has received thus far?

Jimmie: Well, yeah. The people who have heard it like it. My regular fans like it and the music fans seem to like it.

Samuel: I know from the sound of the record it sounded like you had a theme you followed, all the songs tie together very well, was there anything specific you had in mind when you were compiling the songs for this album?

Jimmie: Not really. I didn’t really have a theme, at least not more so than I do any other time. I just really try to play what it is I would love to hear, if I could hear anything in the world. If I could hear my favorite stuff in the whole world, that’s what I try to hear. That’s my goal. That’s what I shoot for. I had been listening to, as I always have listened to, a lot of Jazz records. A lot of Miles Davis, and I was listening to Sarah Vaughan, Theloneous Monk. All sorts of Jazz greats and Blues guys. That’s always a big influence on me, at least in the inspiration department. You don’t necessarily play what you hear, but it inspires you to do stuff. I wanted to do an album that a romantic kind of thing to it. That’s kind of a weird word, if you use romantic these days it sounds old tyme and people go ‘what, romantic.’ But for me it’s like when you’re listening Theloneous Monk records like Mysterioso from the 50’s or Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, if you listen to a Sarah Vaughan album, it’s kind of romantic, that’s what I meant by that. I wanted to do something with that ‘sitting on the side of the bed talking to your sweetheart’ kind of vibe with dirty blues guitar on top of that, if that makes any sense at all.

Samuel: It’s something interesting to try, to put those two elements together.

Jimmie: I’m just playing the kind of music I like. A lot of different things grab me by the nose and pull me around. Different influences...shall I say grab me by the ear and pull me around. Music to me is the greatest thing in the world, and it’s also the most personal thing in the world. The government can’t tell me what to like, no authority figure, no relative, or anyone can tell me what to listen to and what to like. It’s my own. That’s the great thing about music, whatever you like is, it’s the stuff. So, I sort of have my own top 40 and my own world of stuff I like. It can be classical, it can be an old flamenco record, it can be a John Lee Hooker, it could be Jimmy Reed, Albert Collins, Lightning Hopkins, or it could be a Jazz record. I just like to hang out in that world and get inspired and do my own version. One of the things I’m doing is working on my own sound.

Samuel: That’s what I liked about the new record. It was very tight and it sounded like a progression for you. Do you still spend time working on your technique or improve you knowledge of the guitar?

Jimmie: I guess. I play the guitar everyday, that’s what I do. I’ve been playing since I was 12 or 13 years old. I don’t think of it as practicing or working on a technique, I just play. I have guitars in every room of my house. I just kind of walk around and play guitar all time, that’s what I do. It’s therapy for me, or church, or whatever you want to call it. So, I just get on different trips. I’ll think of a progression to the song, like the first song I did off of ‘Do You Get The Blues’ was Planet Bongo. That was the first song I wrote. I kept having this idea about this song that went along and it stopped and there was no time and it was just freeform, like at church. There is no time for a while, it’s totally free. I got on this trip and that’s what came out of the trip. That’s how all the songs are. I got a lot of help this time from Greg Sain, he’s a great musician and singer and a really good lyricist. He helped me a lot. He wrote a lot of the lyrics for the album. He was right on the same wavelength and we knew what we were going for.

Samuel: When writing instrumentals versus songs with lyrics, do you decide that before hand or is it something where you get the song together and you have something to say over it?

Jimmie: It happens every way. A lot of times I come up with the lyrics first, like Off The Deep End. The first thing I thought of was the chorus. (sings the chorus) that’s what I thought of and was like ‘that’s cool as shit.’ I got chill bumps and sat down and that was the only thing I could think of for the first day. I just played the chorus all day. I like those little twists that come out and you don’t expect it, but it makes sense and it’s off a little bit at the same time. Kinda like life. Then, later on, I started the verses and then I got with Paul Lay and he helped me straighten out the verses. And then sometimes, like Don’t Let The Sun Set On Our Love, I thought of the riff first (hums riff). I played that for two years on the guitar and didn’t know what it was. It happens all different ways, there is no set way with me. I try to go with the stuff that is truly inspired. If I hear something and it catches me. I really have a hard time sitting down and making up songs. That’s hard to do for me, to make stuff up. Anyone can sit down and make stuff up, but everyone once in a while when you get that flash or that good feeling or that inspirational moment, I try to jump on that and not judge it too much. Because it’s easy to think of something and go ‘that really sucks.’ You can’t really do that to yourself because you’ll ruin it before you start it. So it’s all a series of tricking yourself into figuring out what to do. Sometimes someone will say something and you’ll say ‘that’s a cool thing.’ I wish I could figure it out. I guess it’s better that I don’t have a set method, because that way I don’t really know what’s going to happen.

Samuel: I think it’s interesting that you said you got chill bumps when you came up with something new, do you feel fortunate to still feel so strongly about your music when so many people have fallen victim to the ‘music is a business’ way of thought? Does it make you feel fortunate that you still look at music as something magical?

Jimmie: Well, you said it perfect. I’m absolutely fortunate and I feel blessed. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be able to play music. It’s how I express myself. It’s like I’m a painter and they give me these canvases and these paints and it’s blank and they ask me what I want to paint. That’s what my job is, I’m very fortunate in that way, that I get to do what I love. I just sit around and think up cool stuff and that’s my job. I love it. Music gives me chill bumps everyday. That’s what I go for. I remember when I was a little kid, before I could play, I could remember how music sounded, when I heard something I like. I remember what it’s like to not be able to play and remember what music sounds like. I still get that same flash when I get an idea for a new song because I don’t know how to do it yet, but I still get that little glimpse of an idea. That’s the part that gives you the inspiration and the chill bumps. It’s the same way with a writer or any creative thing. You get that flash, where you don’t know what to do, and then boom, there it is. I’m terrible at business. If I was more business minded I’d probably do a little better in the music business. The business part completely screws me up, I don’t even understand it or like it. It seems the only way to get ahead in business is to screw people. I don’t know if that’s true, but I like the music part of the music business. I was just listening to Gene Ammonds yesterday, I put this record on, I hadn’t heard it in about three years, and it made my hair stand up. And I was listening to Jimmy Reed a couple of days ago, I could play with Jimmy Reed for 120 years straight in a row and never get tired of it, he’s so cool. He speaks to me. That’s the kind of music I love and that’s what I want to create. You know, a lot of people just don’t get it. But there are those few who get it and it makes it all worth while. Even if no one liked what I did, I’d still do it because that’s what I love. I’m lucky that way. I have allergies today, if you can hear them.

Samuel: It’s to be expected, at least in Texas. Only in Texas do you have to worry about flower blooming and pollen in the air in mid-January.

Jimmie: I love it. I love Texas too. That’s one thing I’ve always enjoyed doing. I really learned how to play, my main influences, the guys I really loved are all from Texas. T-Bone Walker, Johnny Watson, Albert Collins, Gatemouth Brown, Lightning Hopkins, Little Son Jackson. Those guys are from Texas. I’ve always made it my business. When I discovered those guys I was like ‘This is cool, I want to be like those guys when I grow up.’ They’ve always been my heroes. I’d like to a course on Gulf Coast Guitar Sounds. I enjoy that. I enjoy that language. That’s a certain language, you know? I’ve always tried to keep that in my music, so no matter what song or whatever is going on, that guitar is going to come in there somewhere.

Samuel: Hearing you talk about how you looked up to those guys, is it ever odd to think there is a kid who is 13 or so right now who looks at you the way you looked at those guys?

Jimmie: Well, that’s kinda scary to me. That would be good, but I don’t think about that. I enjoy telling people about Kenny Burrell, B.B. King and all the great blues players and jazz players that I loved so maybe they’ll go check one of those guys out and get inspired and then...one guys lead to another then to another and so on. It’s a neverending journey. And these guys are talking to me.

Samuel: That’s funny you say that. Is it still fun to get out with these people you grew up listening to and now you get to play with some of them?

Jimmie: Well, yeah. When I was 12 or 13 years old, if you told me I would get to meet and play with B.B. King and Eric Clapton and Wayne Bennett, and Albert Collins, and Gatemouth Brown, and Freddie King and all these people, I would never have believed you in a hundred years. But I actually got to meet them and play with them and stand there and watch them play. It’s been amazing. I’m still in the process of doing this.

Samuel: With your live shows, do you stick mostly to the recorded versions or will improvise a lot of the solos and riffs?

Jimmie: Well, the way blues works is that there is a melody, and a beginning and an end, sorta. But all the stuff in the middle is just playing. That’s the great thing. That’s why I keep harping on about blues and jazz and flaminco, you’re improvising. If your head was a radio receiver and you kept turning the dial until you actually started receiving the radio station and you play what you receive. That’s what improvisation is about. It happens right then, that’s the cool thing about it.

Samuel Barker is Senior Editor. Contact him at suma@rockzone.com.